any a lad, for
example, was sent to sea by the time he was ten or twelve. Hence the
fact that Simon Willard was apprenticed when so young was in no way
remarkable. But that he should thus early have outranked his teacher is
significant. We are not surprised, in consequence, to hear that it was
not long before he branched out for himself and opened a shop at Grafton
where he began to construct clocks."

"He must still have been pretty youthful," ventured Christopher.

"I imagine he was. Nevertheless he married and settled down to his
career, starting in to make both shelf and long-case varieties. These he
completed during the snowy season when the roads were bad and then, as
soon as summer came and it was possible to get about on horseback, he
and his brother, Aaron, used to travel about and sell the winter's
output. Aaron peddled the goods along the south edge of the
Massachusetts coast and Simon went north, sometimes even as far as
Maine."

"But I should think clocks would have been ruined if jolted about on
horseback!" objected Christopher.

"I don't think it could have been ideal for their health," laughed
McPhearson. "But it was the best method of distribution the age afforded
and Simon Willard did not scorn so humble a beginning. He remained in
Grafton until some time between 1777 and 1780 and then as his wife died
he moved to Roxbury and at what is now Number 2196 Washington Street
opened a shop. In the meantime he had done quite a lot of experimenting
and had arrived at the conclusion he would in future center his energy
on making only church clocks, hall clocks and turret clocks. Therefore
from that date on these were the styles he chiefly manufactured.
Probably it would have been no small surprise to him had he known that
the banjo clock he patented about 1802 and dubbed an _improved
timepiece_ would be the one to come down through history bearing his
name."

"I wouldn't mind having it bear mine," smiled the boy, as he glanced
toward the beautiful old Willard lying so ignominiously on its back on
McPhearson's workbench. "I like all these brass trimmings. Besides, the
picture of the sea fight painted on the glass door is jolly."

"Evidently Willard thought sea fights jolly, too, for he generally
selected them as decoration for his clocks. I have heard there were two
men in Roxbury who painted all his glass for him; one of them did lacy
patterns of conventional design, and the other did naval battles. This